Table of Contents
Radiation II: Measuring Half-Life
Set up in KPTC 005 or 009 (basement labs) so that you are near the howitzer. There should be 7 individual setups and 1 TA setup.
Common area
- General measuring equipment
- Rulers
- Calipers
- Radiation sources
- Gamma emitters: Cs-137 buttons (7)
- Silver foils
- One full container for the “fresh” (not-yet activated) foils
- One empty container for the “used” (activated, but not yet fully-decayed) foils
- Indium foils
- One full container for the “fresh” (not-yet activated) foils
- One empty container for the “used” (activated, but not yet fully-decayed) foils
- Lead shielding (3 blocks)
- Demo items
- Survey meter
- GM tube with a broken window (so you can see inside)
- Extra equipment
- GM tube in holder (1 or 2 extras)
- ST370 Radiation Counter (1 or 2 extras)
- BNC cable (1 or 2 extras)
- USB cable (1 or 2 extras)
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Individual station
- Detection equipment
- GM tube in holder (w/ source holder only)
- ST370 Radiation Counter
- BNC cable
- USB cable
Connect equipment at each station and test with the STX software (with high voltage set to +900 V) using a button source.
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Set up 7 individual stations and 1 identical “TA station” (which should be marked with a sign so that students don't use that station).
On the TA station, download the following indium half-life backup data:
Howitzer
In preparation for each session, do the following:
- make sure that at least two ports on the howitzer are available for use (typically P1, P2 and P3 are free and P4 is used by PHYS 211);
- place at least a couple indium foils in one port of the howitzer at least 3 hours prior to the lab session (so that the TA has an activated foil ready to deploy for the indium half-life measurement).
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